UKGovCamp

great idea …

Suggest maybe a small unconference style workshop could be run with a few select people in your org? give people the chance to set their own agenda govcamp style..

”so many people dont get it… why dont they?”

Perhaps because the govcamp movement has emerged from a convergence of a fairly narrow range of professional interests? Look at the profiles of people who are active now (here and places like the Communities of Practice site). You’ll see mainly colleagues from corporate Web development, public-facing communications, information management, etc. Others from across the organisation are likely to be individuals who are naturally social media early adopters, tech geeks, etc. Surprisingly few in my experience from corporate IT teams!

The result I think is that although govcamps ostensibly have no agendas, at the present state of evolution you can expect the same kinds of interrelated subjects to be proposed each time. In theory an open govcamp can accommodate a session on Housing Benefit Statutory Instruments if there’s a demand for it, but in practice I’ve not yet seen a compelling reason why an unconference should be a better approach to operational topics than any other kind of old-fashioned professional forum, online or in the flesh. So people whose primary interest is the Housing Benefits service are relatively unlikely to engage in the first place. I can see that colleagues working on take-up might be interested, but that’s them fitting into the existing agenda rather than them creating a new one.

Put it another way, maybe unconferences are best suited to emerging issues rather than business as usual. I see them as essentially large-scale brain-storming sessions with some dissemination afterwards.